A Fond Farewell

Dear Washington Avenue Christian Church,

With great sadness, we write with the following news: We are moving. When we left Kansas twenty-six years ago, I (DiAnne) used my snarky, poetry-writing puppet to give the children the message in the church Dennis served as pastor. Part of the poem went like this:

I want you to know we are moving away.
The movers are coming, just not today.
We’re taking God with us, and we’re leaving Him here.
For God does connect us with all we hold dear.

Through the internet and cell phones, we won’t be far away.

God has held this congregation dear to me since the first time I walked through the doors: July 27, 2002. We needed a venue for our daughter’s wedding. The entire wedding weekend, the verse that kept going through our minds was, “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35). After Dennis went into intentional interim ministry, I needed a church home. I decided to come to WACC. It was the best decision I ever made. You welcomed me again, and I saw that unconditional welcome was your consistent behavior. This church allowed me to be me and to use my talents for God’s kingdom. When Dennis finally retired, you welcomed him with open arms. He got to teach – even from a Lutheran perspective. Teaching is his first love, and you didn’t mind that I helped him.

I hope every member of this congregation realizes how exceptional this church is. Your love of God shines through from the doorsteps of the church to the ends of the earth. This love has certainly shined into our lives.

We are leaving because our daughter wants us closer to her because of health issues. We found a 1953 Sears and Roebuck house in Piqua, Ohio. (Interesting what you could buy through the mail back then.) The coffee pot will always be ready for company.

I want to close with the Holden Village prayer, which we used at our wedding and at every installation and final service throughout Dennis’s ministry:

“Oh Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths yet untrodden, through perils unknown, Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Thank you for being such a blessing to us for the past 15 years.

DiAnne and Dennis Schmidt